Helping the Congregation Understand the Demands on an Interim Minister – Transcript

Jim Latimer: Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers: best practices and quick help from interims for interims –
wisdom from the field. Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Reverend Dr. Jill Small. Jill, you have served a lot of interims in many different shapes and flavors, and it’s a joy and an honor to have you with us today. What bit of wisdom would you like to share with our listeners?

Jill: Thanks, Jim, for asking me to chat with you today. I’d like to talk today about the work of the interim minister and how we do all of the ordinary things that a settled pastor does, and all of the extraordinary things that need to be done as part of an interim time. Sometimes I think congregations don’t recognize that we are doing all of the things that a settled pastor does. So, if people want to get married, or they go to the hospital, or they have a baby, you still preach every Sunday, or most Sundays. You have board and committee meetings. The rhythm of church life doesn’t necessarily change very much during an interim period. So to some extent you do all of the things that the settled pastor had been doing and will do in the future, and then you have this extraordinary focus of helping the congregation move from that former pastor to be ready to welcome their next settled pastor fully and joyfully, and set that person up for as much success as we can.

So putting that out on the table as an awareness piece for the leadership of your congregation first, is a good thing, and then also more broadly for the congregation to recognize. And I don’t mean in a way in which you say, “I have so much work to do!” I don’t mean in that sort of way, but just an awareness that the demands on an interim Minister are greater than the demands on a settled pastor just by virtue of the interim work that needs to be done. And not only that, if I could just bookmark quickly, a lot of parishioners have no idea what pastors do and the demands on us.

Jim Latimer: And one of the ways, we can set our successors up for success is by helping the congregation better understand what that is, right? I’m sure you’re going to say more about that. I just couldn’t resist saying it at the moment.

Jill: I think that’s a very important bookmark to insert there. And in the interim work we talk about these three very important central questions: Who are we? Who are our neighbors? and, Who is God calling us to be or to become? In my interim work, I also like to insert a fourth question, a question about space, because our space is important. Our buildings are important. They say a lot about us, and our relationship to the congregation and to the community. So I always like to talk some about what our buildings say about who we are, in mission and ministry as God’s people in this time and place. So just those questions alone can take a lot of focus.

But then there are also other interim tasks that may need to be addressed. So if there is grieving about the departure of a much beloved pastor who’s maybe had a long tenure, how you help the congregation move through that, that’s a unique skill. If there has been a short pastorate which was not successful, how do you help the congregation think and talk about the part they may have played in that failed pastorate? “Failed” may be too strong a word here for a very short term turnover. There may be, heaven forbid, there could be clergy misconduct that needs to be discussed and unpacked.

So the interim work is those three questions, but sometimes can involve a lot of other stuff as well. If there are big changes in the congregation, let’s say, many much beloved long-term members died in the last year, or during the interim period. What about that? I mean there are lots of things that the interim Minister does that are part of regular ministry, but it may take on a unique tenor during the interim period.

Jim Latimer: All in all, what I’m hearing you do is that you help the congregation understand what the pastoral role is, and what are the demands, and do that in a way that’s not whining or complaining, but just teaching them so they can see and then understand better, right?

Jill: The interim period is an opportunity for education, yes. And for raising awareness on a lot of different topics, many of which I think you’ll touch on – your library is going to address. And I hope people will peruse it. I think another piece of this too, Jim, as we’ve mentioned already, is the importance of acknowledging that when you advocate for something during the interim period, it’s important to model good boundaries. And expressing the importance of having a healthy personal spiritual practice, and having time to devote to your family, cultivating your family time. You know some congregations are more demanding than others in terms of the amount of time that they will require.

And you’re not only doing that for your own good practice, but you also help to establish that as a norm, as a model, that can benefit your successor, or the person who comes as the settled pastor. Because, a little bit tongue in cheek I will say here, you know, for a year and a half or two years, you can probably stand a pace that is extraordinary. But if you want your next pastor to be there for five years or 10 years or 20 years, if that’s your expectation, you can’t burn that person out in the first 18 months. You want the congregation to learn your rhythm, to learn what your needs and wants are, and that is a mutual enterprise – helping congregations to understand that.

And maybe this is I think, a useful model, to look at the biblical witness, and to say, “During the interim time I’m not Moses, but what I’m doing during the interim time is a little bit like Moses: I’m bringing you on a journey. And I may not get you into the promised land, but I’m bringing you on a journey, and that journey will be filled with some complaint, and some repentance, and some starting again and, we’re on a journey together.” So I think that all helps to set up the congregation, as well as the incoming pastor, for a happy, joyful and successful future in the next chapter that they’ll write together.

Jim Latimer: That’s beautiful, setting expectations, setting the next settled pastor up for success, and all that you can do as an interim to influence that. That’s a pretty sacred and important work and you don’t have to burn yourself out while you’re doing it too, which is a big piece of what you’re saying.

Jill: I think if you have aspirations to do more than one interim you do not want to burn yourself out.

Jim Latimer: Thank you so much, Jill, for sharing your wisdom and your time with us.

More Bits Of Wisdom from Rev. Dr. Jill H. Small
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